Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Dear Technology, can you please give me a break? Any damn day now.

I haven’t complained about technology in a while.  Probably not since I got a functioning TV and satellite receiver with PVR capabilities.  So, I guess I’m due.  I mean, after two years of whining about my TV, my life has felt kind of empty without having anything technological to complain about for the past two months.

Ah, DVD Player, you finicky little devil.  I knew you wouldn’t let me down!

That’s right.  I’m now having DVD player problems.  RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF PRIME CHRISTMAS DVD WATCHING TIME. 

Like, as IF!!!!

I have a little el cheapo DVD player that I bought from Wal-Mart a few years ago for my room.  It skips and jumps and won’t even play 74% of the DVDs I own.  But it plays Dexter, so really, it has served it’s purpose.  I had another DVD player downstairs that I was given second-hand that crapped out right in the midst of all the TV/satellite/PVR drama of Fall 2013.  Really, it was a very terrible time in my life that I don’t even like to talk about.

Because a DVD player was really the only thing keeping me connected to watching things on a screen bigger than my Blackberry at that time, I had no choice but to steal my mom’s DVD player from her basement.  She rarely rarely rarely uses the basement technology, and doesn’t even know how to use DVD players in general, so I knew she wouldn’t miss it.

And so I kept the el cheapo up in my room (for Dex), put the thieved one downstairs (for everything else), got the TV/satellite issues solved, and all was right and good in my world.

Until last night.

Last night, I decided it was time to write my Christmas cards, and I needed a holiday movie playing in the background while I worked on them.  So I popped in “Four Christmases”.  And nothing happened.   It just stayed on that beginning screen for a few minutes.  And then it spit the DVD back out at me.

So I tried “Eight Crazy Nights”.  Same result.  And then the same thing happened with “A Christmas Carol”.

I wondered if maybe this DVD player had a problem with Christmas.  Like, was it discriminating against Christmas or something?  So I then tried three other “normal” DVDs – “The Notebook”, “Anchorman”, and “The Dark Knight”, to be precise – all with the same results.

DVD player = Done.  Finito. Crapped right out.

*sigh*

It never ends.

So until I solve this new DVD player mystery, I guess I have to come with other game plans for watching Christmas movies and specials.  Like,  actually watching them on TV.  The horrors.

There is one thing though that might help for the time being.  And that is this little internet tool called “YouTube”.

I found something really cool on YouTube.  See, when we were kids, my mom got us a VHS tape one year with a bunch of old Christmas cartoons on it.  I have no idea where she bought it, or what ever happened to it (trust me, I’ve searched high and low, and it is gone, probably lost to one of my mother’s garage sales) – but I remember really liking it.

At this time of year, I can often be heard singing this little ditty:  Christmas comes but once a year, now it’s here, now it’s here. Bringing lots of joy and cheer, tra-la-la-la-la!

Someone heard me singing it once a few years back and asked what song it was.  I had to search my memory banks, but finally came to the realization that it was a song from one of those old Christmas cartoons on that tape.  I had no idea what the collection was called, or even what the titles of those cartoon shorts were.  So I just plugged the line from that song into the ol’ google machine, and sure enough, it led me to this little cartoon on YouTube!

Oh, the memories of Christmases from my childhood!  They all came whirling back while I watched this.  And it also led me to a bunch of other Max Fleischer cartoons that were also on that same long-lost videotape.

Is anyone else familiar with these Christmas clips?  Or was it just us??  I think they’re so cute and old-fashioned and I LOVE them.  What old long-lost Christmas shows/specials did you love when you were a kid?  If you’re sad and miss them, check YouTube.  I bet it has them.  The interwebs has everything.

Thank you, YouTube, for filling in while DVD Player has his meltdown.

I guess I have to add a DVD player now to my Christmas Wishlist.  frig.

6 comments:

Jen said...

OMGosh...I remember that one! Another one we always watched was Bluetoes: The Christmas Elf. My favourite of definitely the cartoon of The Grinch though. The other night Charlie's Brown's Christmas was on and I got all excited and told the kids we were watching it. About 5 minutes in Mackenzie says 'Is anyone else enjoying this???'. Kev says 'I guess they're not as excited as we used to be as kids when it came on.'
Love the Christmas posts!

Nicole said...

Oh Jilly! You should watch Hallmark. Mark decided last night that all the story lines are practically the same but they're soooooo addicting too.

VandyJ said...

We go through DVD players regularly here. It's annoying.

Amanda said...

I remember that one! I think I found it online this time last year. Of course, I thought it was the greatest thing Piper looked at my like I was nuts.

Stacie said...

And you have such a good collection of Chtristmas movies, too!

Nancy said...

I love them all, Blue Toes, Frosty, Rudolph....I have a tape of shows from 1988 that I made for the twins. I don't even have a VCR upstairs, but now you have me wanting to watch that old tape!